Edward MendelsonApple OS X 10.8 Mountain LionOnce again, OS X takes the prize as the world's best consumer operating system money can buy, and it looks well positioned to hold off the challenge of Windows 8.

New sharing and extensive cloud-based synchronization features. New apps for OS X that match their iOS counterparts. Strong security features that don't get in the way of expert users. Gaming Center and AirPlay Mirroring turn the Mac into a high-powered gaming console.

Cons

Trivial inconsistencies in the interface.

Bottom Line

Once again, OS X takes the prize as the world's best consumer operating system money can buy, and it looks well positioned to hold off the challenge of Windows 8.

If you store documents in the cloud, you can't access them through the Finder, only through the list of cloud-based documents that appears when you open a cloud-enabled app like TextEdit, Pages, or Preview. This means that documents in the cloud are accessed somewhat in the way that songs are accessed in iTunes—you don't open them directly in the Finder, but through a simplified interface that only shows you documents that the current app can work with.

The traditional file system is opaque to most users, and even experts get impatient with it, and, as the amount of digitally-stored data increases, some system like Apple's is likely to supplant it in the future. Meanwhile, Mountain Lion does a reasonable job of helping users navigate between two radically different ways of storing documents.

Upgrades and InnovationsI tested Mountain Lion on two Macs, a 2011 MacBook Air with the Mountain Lion system that I've used continuously for the past year (since it was released in preview), and a new MacBook Pro with Retina Display, with Mountain Lion newly installed. When I upgraded from Lion to Mountain Lion on the MacBook Air, I was impressed by the smoothest upgrade I've ever experienced. When the computer restarted, OS X looked exactly as I had previously customized it, and a message told me that only two of my apps had been quarantined as incompatible. (One was the GlimmerBlocker ad-blocker, which worked perfectly when I installed the latest version. The other was an online security app used by some banks. Both installed successfully in Mountain Lion when I downloaded the latest versions of them.)

All my existing apps and utilities worked without a hiccup when I started them up in Mountain Lion. I haven't encountered any significant glitch after a week of heavy use, and, for the first time, I would recommend upgrading to a new version of OS X on its first release, instead of waiting for the first point release.

The most obvious new interface feature in Mountain Lion is the Notification Center hidden under a menu bar icon at the upper right of the screen. Just as new messages, scheduled events, and emails are signaled by notifications on the home screen in iOS, now these and much else can be signaled by boxes that appear briefly at the upper right of the screen (long-time users of the third-party Growl notification system already know where to look). Click on the menu bar icon or swipe the trackpad, and the full Notification Center slides open as a vertical panel on the right, showing all recent items. Click on any one to open it in its native app like Mail or Messages. Option-click on the menu bar icon to turn notifications on or off, or swipe down in the Notification Center to turn them off for the rest of the day. You can expect third-party developers to plug their apps into Notification Center, and I'm impatient for someone to support notifications of RSS feeds, because Apple—in the only change I dislike in Mountain Lion—removed built-in RSS support from Safari and Mail.

Sharing and SpeakingThe most pervasive new feature involves sharing and social networking. A new "share sheet" feature accessible from Safari and Preview—and soon from third-party apps—lets you send a Web page or file via email, text message, Twitter (and you can choose among multiple Twitter accounts), Flickr, and OS X's built-in Air Drop local sharing system. After a forthcoming update of Mountain Lion, Facebook sharing will also be accessible (no word on when). The share sheet feature consolidates the old cluttered system where every app had its own menu items for sending or sharing, and it's designed to be extended through an API by future services and apps. It's a typical example of Apple's intelligent way of adapting its existing OS for the future without disrupting the existing interface.

The new dictation system is surprisingly accurate and flexible, and lets you add punctuation and symbols by simply saying, "at sign," "question mark," and other names. It sometimes drops words when transcribing a fast-talking New Yorker like me, but it's already quite good, and I expect improvements with every new update to Mountain Lion. The interface is slightly confusing: after enabling dictation in System Preferences—it's switched off by default—you click wherever you want your dictated text to appear, then press the Fn key twice and start talking. A microphone icon appears, with a button that says "Done." At first I thought the word "Done" meant that the system thought I was finished talking, but I soon figured out that I was supposed to click on "Done" when I was done talking. At this point, the system pauses for a moment to process your speech, and then types it on screen.

Apple OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion

Apple OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion

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